December 13, 2017--Stars Fell On Alabama

Briefly--

Yes, stars fell on Alabama last night.

The big winner was human dignity.

The winners also included, obviously, Doug Jones; African American voters who turned out to give him more votes in percentage terms than they did to Barak Obama; and a goodly percentage of white women who in the privacy of the voting booth said, "Enough." 

Then, there are the rest of us who believe in our "system"--that checks and balances are still functioning in Donald Trump's America.

The losers are many--knee-jerk partisans; talk radio demagogues; bigots, racists, and antisemites; a lot of Republicans who will lose elections in 2018; Donald Trump (his presidency is imploding now on a fast track); and, my schadenfreude favorite, Steve Bannon who is no longer the boy genius. Off to the ash-heap of history for him.

December 7, 2017--Al Franken

As I write this a number of events are unfolding that are closely connected--

Additional women have stepped forward to accuse Senator Al Franken of sexual improprieties.

Support among his Democratic Senate colleagues--mainly women including Kirsten Gillibrand, Patty Murray, and Claire McCaskill--is collapsing. A number of male Senators have joined them in calling for Franken to step aside.

Gillibrand said, "It would be better for our country if he sent a clear message that any kind of mistreatment of women in our society isn't acceptable by stepping aside to let someone else serve."

Senator Bob Casey said, "I agree with my colleagues who have stepped forward today and called on Senator Franken to resign. We can't just believe women when it's convenient."

Meanwhile, in Alabama, it is looking as if Roy Moore will be elected and Republicans in the Senate will "seat" a likely pedophile in their caucus.

While the Republicans are backed into a corner--most would like Moore to up and disappear--for the Democrats there is a political opportunity.

No matter how good a senator Franken has been (I think his work and influence are overrated), he has become a political liability to Democrats. 

It will be difficult to point a finger at the GOP, claiming they are the party of sexual predators Donald Trump and Roy Moore (I can already see the 2018 political ads) while going through months of investigations and technical procedures to determine if Franken is fit to be a U.S. senator.

I am not saying that what Franken has admitted to doing is morally or even legally equivalent to Moore's transgressions, but they both should go. 

From my partisan liberal perspective, I would be happy to have Moore in the Senate and ranting on CSPAN while Franken moves on. I am therefore proud of the Democrats who are finally acting as if they want to stop whining and win.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

November 22, 2017--Notes From the Swamp

As part of his campaign in Alabama, Roy Moore has been enlisting the assistance of a large group of Evangelical preachers.

This week, a number of them reached rock bottom in their desperate attempt to deflect attention from Moore to those who accused him of sexual abuse.

One in effect said, "Who can blame him. Some of these 14-year-old girls look like they're 20."

Another said that if Jesus Christ himself came "down off his cross" and confronted Moore about his behavior, Moore should say, "I need to talk with my president to see what he would advise me to do."

I think we know what Trump would advise.

My favorite--one minister said that his accusers have committed crimes and should be prosecuted. If they claim that he molested them, they should not have waited decades to report him to the police. They had a legal responsibility to seek his indictment. Not to do so is to obstruct justice. A felony.

This is my favorite because of its desperate logic--if it is valid to say the girls and women were covering up crimes that means that Moore would be admitting he committed the crimes they are covering up.

This is so hypocritically and perversely clever that it suggests Steve Bannon is behind these counterattacks.

*    *    *

Rona last night raised a complicated question--

We were talking about the governor of Alabama who, among others, said she believes the the accusers but will still vote for Moore because anything is better than electing a Democrat.

Rona said, "If you're a Christian conservative and believe that abortion is killing; and that if Moore's opponent, Doug Jones, believes in a woman's right to choose (he does), you're faced with the dilemma of voting for either a pedophile or a baby killer. Put yourself in the shoes of the person who is passionate about this. What do you say? What do you do?"

I'm still thinking about this. There's a part of me that wants to be fair minded, then there is another part of me that . . .

*    *    *

Then, I wondered, when attempting to compare Moore with Al Franken, feeling that there is no moral equivalency, there may be a great and sad irony that Moore, who I think will be elected, will be ushered into the Senate while Franken is being ushered out. How out of joint does that feel?

*    *    *

Further, about the sexual component of this, there is yet another social divide between people of faith and those of us who are more secularly oriented.

Whatever the truth about Franken's and Moore's behavior, clearly Franken was having some sophomoric though inexcusable "fun" as the photo of him fondling Leeann Tweeden reveals, while Moore was involved in acts of traditional, regional Gothic perversity. Yet another example of the great cultural dissonance that continues to plague our country.

*    *    *

Finally, I was thinking about the swamp that Trump and Bannon famously say they want to drain. Putting aside for the moment what that all means--since by my definition of swamp creatures they both qualify--one thing is clear: we're not talking about a swamp. We're talking more about a cesspool that in fact needs to be drained. 

To compare what is going in within our various governments--federal as well as local--swamp is an inappropriate metaphor. 

Swamps are a part of the natural order and as forested wetlands serve important life-generating purposes. They are places of great fecundity and contribute vitality to biodiversity and the larger ecosystem.

Cesspools on the other hand are, well, cesspools. And we have an overflowing one in Washington and another in Alabama. They and the many others are long overdo for draining. 

Swamp

November 13, 2017--Republicans Hit Rock Bottom

Since June 2015 when Donald Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower to announce he was running for president (at the time I didn't appreciate the living metaphor of this descent), along with many others I wondered out loud about when he would finally hit rock bottom in his words and behavior. 

Would his calling Vietnam war hero John McCain a "loser" because he was shot down and captured--"I like winners, not prisoners"--turn enough voters off and knock Trump the draft dodger out of the race?

Or would it be the end when he mocked the gold star parents who spoke movingly about their son who had been killed in action?

Certainly, when the Billy Bush tape became known, the one where Trump bragged about grabbing pussies and how easy it is to get sex if you're rich and famous, certainly that alone would do him in.

But, no, it failed to do so. To his supporters his vulgarity and brashness made him even more attractive--their kind of person--and the rest is history.

He continues to speak and act outrageously now that he is president. Almost daily there is something in his tweets to delight his most fervent followers. It is likely true that, as he boasted, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. 

Now, Trump may have company in Alabaman Judge Roy Moore, the Republican nominee who is running to replace Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump's Attorney General.

Moore who is convincingly accused of having repeatedly molested a 14 year-old girl in 1979 refuses to withdraw from the race and by all indications, in spite of this, is likely to be elected.

Most Republican leaders are apoplectic. After their stunning defeats in Virginia and elsewhere last week they are in full panic that (1) Moore, will refuse to step aside and further tarnish the GOP brand or (2) he will be elected and they will then not know what to do with him. Ensconced in the Senate he will remind voters daily that pedophiles are welcome under the Republican tent.

Further, Moore's continuing campaign will surface all sorts of undesirable, image-mangling Alabaman Republican leaders who have been saying that they will vote for him even if he is guilty because anything, anything is better than having a Democrat representing in Congress the great state of Alabama. Pedophiles yes; Democrats, no.

Some from the evangelical community--major players in the Heart of Dixie State--have compared Moore to Joseph of Mary and Joseph. 

Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, for example, noted that there are many older men cavorting with teens in the Bible, including Mary and Joseph, who "became parents of Jesus." This is a direct quote.

So, if one is still wondering when we would hit rock bottom in our Trumpian politics take note--we just have. 

October 20, 2017--Sarah Is Pissed With Me

"You've finally gone too far." It was Sarah calling. I know her for more than 35 years.

"I'm listening."

"That blog you wrote about ISIS and Donald Trump."

"From a few days ago. It was the piece about the end of ISIS as an organized fighting force."

"That part of it I was OK with."

"So what has you so agitated?"

"That you assigned credit to that turd Trump for having defeated them on the battlefield. Something your New York Times was skeptical about in two articles published a few days after your blog."

"I beg to differ with your interpretation of the differences between their pieces and mine. Not that my stuff is of the quality of the New York Times. Not even close, but some times I feel I get to a story before they do. So at those times I'm ahead of the Times." 

I thought that was pretty snappy.

"You can make light of this all you want but this finally made me crazy."

"How's that?"

"For at least two years in your pieces you've been an apologist for him. By your taking him seriously you've helped normalize him. To give him the credibility of a regular politician and not the skunk he is. An unqualified and dangerous skunk." I could hear her breathing hard.

"Let's try to calm this down and unpack it. First, about ISIS. I said Trump accepted the strategy Obama set in motion and doubled down on it. In one of the Times pieces they compared how many attacks and how many bombs were dropped on ISIS during Obama's time and Trump's. They concluded Trump authorized more and unleashed our troops more than Obama did and that contributed to ISIS's defeat. That was a part of what I wrote and was also a part of what the Times reported."

"He's a lunatic, a monster, a danger to the world who has his hands on the nuclear codes and you take him seriously? I've had it up to here with you," she shouted.

"Of course I take him seriously. He's the president for ill or good. I know the ill part and try to find a few things that are good. Like maybe listening to his generals when it came to ISIS. I wrote about that too."

"That's the part that torqued me off the most," Sarah spat, "How you could find anything good to say about him."

"Now we're getting to a bigger problem."

"Now, I'm listening," she said.

"I know you'll be offended by this but I'll still take the risk of raising it with you." I waited for permission to put our relationship on the line. It didn't come, but her silence and the fact that she didn't hang up encouraged me to continue.

"Here's one of my big problems with Democrats and liberals when it comes to opposing Trump. It's almost as if they--and honestly, though I love you, I mean you too and, I have to add, me--it's almost as if we so much hate the idea that he might do something or stumble onto something good--like fighting ISIS effectively--that you'd prefer him to do everything wrong. Some call this 'confirmation bias,' where you look for things to support your already-established point of view. In Trump's case, this means that you despise him so much that the only things you pay attention to are the horrendous things he does. And of course, in my view too, almost everything he does qualifies."

Sarah was groaning. "This may sound crazy, but when it comes to a really dangerous situation like North Korea it would confirm your worst fears if he got us into a major war with them. Maybe even using atomic weapons. That would prove once and for all, including the historical assessment of his presidency, that he was, is the worst president we've ever had. If this is at all true, think about it--that his starting a nuclear war would confirm for all time that he is truly crazy and he ultimately led to many millions being killed during his years as president. You'd prefer that than think or hope he can somehow solve our problems with the North Koreans. I know this is unlikely, but it's possible and shouldn't we therefore work to make the possibility more probable? Rather than hope he'll fail with this too?"

"What you're saying is crazy," Sarah said, "He's the one who's a danger to life on earth and still you keep looking around to find good things to say about him? Again, like what you wrote about him and ISIS. How maybe since he listened to reason about how to deal with them he'll do it again when it comes to a bigger crisis like with North Korea."

"We're never going to agree about this," I said. "But one final thing. I've also written pretty extensively about how most of the liberals and Democrats I know did very little to actively defeat Trump and elect Hillary. At most, most of the people I know sent checks to support her campaign or Bernie's. I won't ask what you did though I know you didn't go to any rallies or work the phones. And you live in a purple state. So, and we're speaking frankly with each other, as you accused me, you helped by not being active in the campaign to elect the person you most hate."

"What I did is my own business. You're changing the subject. Turning it on me."

"True, I am changing it. And since I am I have one more question for you--what are you doing about Alabama?"

"Alabama?"

"In the senate race there? To replace Jeff Sessions? There's a lunatic on the Republican side. Judge Roy Moore who tried to get the 10 Commandments displayed at the statehouse. And then there's the Democrat, Doug Jones. He has a chance. In fact, a Fox poll this week has the contest as a toss up. So, if you're so riled up, what are you doing to help elect Jones?" I waited. "Your silence tells me more than I hoped to know. Bottom line--we all have to check ourselves out. Few of us are not implicated. We all contributed to this mess."

Sarah said, "Let's take a time out. I mean in our relationship. I hear you but still disagree. I mean about the role you've played in this. I'm still furious with you. You write this stuff and send it out. You have a lot of followers. Therefore, you have an additional responsibility to be careful with what you say."

"And, love, so do you. Including what you do."

Judge Roy Moore--10 Commandments